Phonology and Discourse Quiz

Phonetics studies…

• The meaning of words

• The physical sounds of language

• Grammar rules

• Written symbols

A phoneme is…

• The smallest unit of grammar

• The smallest unit of sound that changes meaning

• A type of sentence

• An accent

Which of the following is a suprasegmental feature?

• Word stress

• Prefix

• Pronoun

• Noun phrase

True or False: Word stress has no effect on meaning in English.

• True

• False

"Ship" vs "sheep" is an example of…

• Homophones

• Minimal pairs

• Synonyms

• Contractions

/θ/ ("think") differs from /ð/ ("this") because…

• Place of articulation

• One is voiceless, the other voiced

• One is a stop, the other a fricative

• They are identical

Intonation refers to…

• Volume

• The rise and fall of pitch in speech

• Spelling rules

• Word order

True or False: English spelling always matches its pronunciation.

• True

• False

Weak forms in English help…

• Reduce stress and maintain rhythm

• Change meaning completely

• Emphasize words

• Replace nouns

The difference between /p/ and /b/ is…

• Stress

• Voicing

• Word order

• Place of articulation